Dex, Bridge

She made notes while others spoke, pleased with Haze’s ideas. He’d need to fill in the gaps with intel, information she could easily provide. Iosif offering to run transport would be a huge advantage, Iosif had proven on their last mission he was more than capable of handling the Kite. Rolling with the unexpected. While Haze’s plan had some good potential for being the groundwork.

Khosin being able to provide some information through the Blue Suns, she wondered if she’d be able to tap those sources of his for more. A small swipe across her omnitool, flitted to a new page of information. Firu making herself available to help the medical staff on Lafayette made Dex smile, she was willing to pitch in and help. When Drono replied it pulled her attention back, nodding along with what he had to say. If he had a contact to lead Yestin astray it meant she could focus entirely on the mission. Ambushing an enemy was arguably her favourite way to deal with them. When he referred to her as ‘babe’, the creak in the chair was on the only indication of her distaste.

Dex regarded Haze replying to him, “I’ll be making up information packets for everyone with what I gather. So we’re all on the same page. You’ve got a good start for a plan now Haze.” She pointed to Iosif, “That would be perfect actually. You handled yourself well with the Kite on Virmire, I’ll be using the ship as our main hub of communications and security. Ideally I want to be on the ground, free to move to help wherever it is needed. Helping Tanya sabotage the mechs, hacking the shits directly, shooting a couple kneecaps… the usual.”

She stood up from her seat looking to Vellios replying, “I agree actually. I don’t think Vellios will work out as a decoy. If we want mercs alive and someone reliable to get from point A to point B I’d rather have Khosin covering for decoy. Faking an injury won’t be too difficult. He’s volunteered.”

“We can work out those details as we plan some more but that is my two cents on that matter.” Dex turned walking over to Serena next. “You and I have some work to do.”

She stopped then looked back over her shoulder at Drono, his mood had noticeably improved. She smiled then sauntered over to him with an exaggerated sway of her hips. Leaning over his shoulder to whisper in his ear, “Don’t call me, Babe.” A note above venomous. Lightly patting his cheek with her mechanical hand, affectionately.

She nodded at the others, “Keep an eye out for that info packet.”

They had a few weeks of time, plenty for a former spy to work her magic.

“Then wear a damned disguise.” Tonka said to Vellios, shaking his head. “There’s plenty of helmets with face visors that don’t look out of place that’s as rough around the edges like where we’re going. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, don’t think about killing off all the Eclipse mercs to hide your tracks. We start shooting the place up, it doesn’t matter if Dex or anyone has hacked into the station security network, any asshole with an omni-tool or camera can record all of our beautiful smiling faces and blast it across the Extranet faster than you can draw a pistol. But if you don’t want to be a decoy, fine. We’ll put someone else in harm’s way, because there’s exactly one person on this ship you give a shit about and the rest of us can go to the Void; you’d gut each and every one of us if it meant being a good babysitter to the kid. I sure as shit don’t trust you to watch our asses.”

That out of the way, he turned to the meeting at large. “I’m going to see if I can’t pull up station schematics off of the Extranet and get us a blueprint of what we need to look out for. Unless someone has a better spot for me or wants me to run decoy, I’m going to find a sniper’s perch around the docking bay so if Yestin manages to slip by you guys, he runs into an accident. That and covering your asses if we need to beat a retreat and make a run to the shuttle.” The krogan concluded with a shrug, giving Vellios a glare as he walked off the bridge and back to the Engineering compartment.

Tanya watched him go with arms crossed and a hand covering her mouth in thought. She extended her hand out to articulate her speech. ”I’ve not objections to the plan, really. Ideally I’d like to get in and out of there without anyone trading shots, but it’s something we’re going to have to prepare for. We absolutely do not want civilians getting caught up in this shit, so I’m going to protest the mining hallways idea. What if a family walks through there? Trust me, the last thing you want on your conscious is the sight of a little kid getting butchered from your mistake.” She said, quietly adding. ”I would know.”

Grinding the pad of her foot uncomfortably against the deck and wrapping her arms tighter about herself, she continued. ”Anyways, the priority should be getting Drono into the clinic, undetected if we have to. Let’s avoid stirring up too much shit, because the fact of the matter is, Eclipse is a security organization that is often contracted to guard stations exactly like Lafayette because there’s no Citadel authorities in the region.

“They do a lot of awful shit, everyone knows this, but the fact of the matter is they don’t terrorize the neighbourhoods they have contracts. They go out of their way to look all prim and proper so that way the locals trust them and ignore all the evil shit the organization gets up to. It’s like how drug Cartels or mafias give people jobs or act like model citizens in areas they reside, people feel safer with them there because they don’t trust the authorities to help them when these bad guys are the ones giving out water and medicine and keeping them safe from pirates and the like. We fuck this up and all people are going to see are a bunch of Rogues who attacked the station and put them in danger. They won’t know, or care, that we’re trying to save someone’s life. It just makes it look like we’re willing to put a lot of innocent lives in danger for our own selfish wants.” Tanya said firmly, looking around at the faces gathered. ”I’m going to spend the trip to the station going over what’s known about Eclipse doctrine and studying their mechs inside and out. If I’m going to sabotage them, I want it to be quick and efficient where they’re useless bricks instead of deadly killing machines.”

With that, Tanya also made her way off of the bridge to prepare for an assignment that she had a sinking horrible feeling about. She was concerned for Drono’s well-being, but also for everyone else on the team… and this would be the first time they’d be operating in a civilian-heavy area. Omega was different; they hit the Twin Star’s mining facility and rescued some unintended hostages. If the team pulled shit like they did in Virmire, they’d not only look like villains and paint a target on their backs, but innocent people could be hurt from their carelessness.

Instead of making her way to the hanger, she headed to her quarters and sat heavily on the uncomfortable mattress, her back against the wall. How much was a life worth, anyways? If they started a shootout with Eclipse, how many innocent lives would be collateral, and to save one drell’s life? The team barely knew each other, and this was what they were willing to risk. Pulling the picture of her father from the end table, she looked at Eric Carson’s face for the thousandth time since she framed the picture, a still portrait from a mere second in his entirely life, and this was all she had left of him. ”Dad, what would you do? I could use your advice right about now.”

Eric Carson’s easygoing smile didn’t waver, and his gaze remained as steady as it always was. The picture remained silent.



Picked up on sensors before it came into visual range, Lafayette Station sat in orbit around Binthu, the second planet of the Yangtze System. Compared to the Citadel or Omega, it was a small station that had originally began life as a military field hospital outpost when the Alliance was charting territories in unknown regions in space, and upon finding nothing of value that would sustain a colony or trade relations with other species, was quietly abandoned by the Systems Alliance and quietly taken over by settlers that were willing to deal with the harsh isolation of the station and higher import fees for supplies in exchange for somewhere that was out of the way where no one would bother them. The station subsequently grew to a population of about 32,000 people, its original form buried under countless expansion and construction projects, including a fully-fledged hydroponics development that accounted for the station’s primary oxygen supply and agricultural source.

In orbit around the station were a number of defensive ships bearing Eclipse markings, and even as the Borealis approached, there were ships visible leaving the station and arriving at very irregular intervals. The supply train and trading system was obviously healthy; the real question was what the people of Lafayette had to offer that could afford regular imports and Eclipse security. The docking clearance was granted without much in the way of suspicion, and soon enough the ship was directed to the secondary dock, the one constructed years after the station for civilian traffic. Eclipse, as it turned out, was in sole possession of the original docking bay and part of the station as a whole.

While the station was run a lot like a mid-sized town, including just about any amenities you could want, there was an abnormally high emphasis on medical care. It became quickly apparent that a lot of the ships coming to the station were people desperate for medical care that they weren’t getting back in the Alliance controlled regions, be in waiting lists or unauthorized and unregulated treatments. Lafayette was becoming something of a beacon of hope for a number of people, although they certainly had to pay a premium for it. Universal healthcare, as it turned out, didn’t apply to the whole universe, especially somewhere that was largely off the grid and forgotten. None of the civilians appeared to be armed, save for a handful of those with pistols on their hips. It was unclear if those people required special permission or not to carry. If anyone on the team brought a gun, it would have to be concealed or find a way past customs. Given Eclipse was the outfit running security, their scanners would be sophisticated enough to pick up anything going through the checkpoint; the scanners would have to be sabotaged into reading false positives, or someone was going to have to find a way on the station outside of the checkpoint. Fortunately, there were only a handful of organic Eclipse officers at Customs; the rest seemed to be the typical LOKI mechs that were handling the processing of documentation and scanning for contraband.

However, there was evidently a checkpoint that wasn’t scanned that was related to medical supplies and the appropriate badges. Schematics also showed that there were service hatches in three separate locations, but there were also security feeds on each of them, locks, and attempting to access them would be largely in plain sight. Perhaps there was a way to find maintenance uniforms and equipment that would pass scrutiny... or something that could draw attention well away from the access hatches.

Before the crew made their way off the ship, Vellios had studied the maps that each of the crew collected over the specs of the Lafayette station and downloaded into his omnitool for when they needed a quick exit. Thanks to encryption from both Serena and Dex, it would take a grade A hacker to find them masquerading as game programming data. He made his way toward the exit area right after their ship took dock.

He leaned over to sight see the hatch widen and eyed the busy scenery around them. Individuals, mostly LOKI and humans, were darting about from one area to the next to load, unload and other activities he was use to seeing in a place like this. His figure stood lingered there for several moments before he began to move again and came to rest to Serena’s side, his nerves made obvious only to her.

It didn’t help he was unarmed.

He crossed his arms, trying to prevent the twitching in his talons from being visible as he held his eyes to the nearest wall on the old relic. Vellios didn’t like he was too aware of what was missing on his person, the absent weight of his weapons brought back terrible memories and the instinct gnawing at him not to risk repeating those experiences by doing this.

Why did I let Serena talk me into removing all of my blades?!? The thought screamed at him through his crest while he breathed through his nostrils, trying to sooth over the jumpiness within him, and act natural. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to fake it.

The moment they began to move, Vellios did. His figure kept close to Serena as he glided and kept in step with her on exiting. Each time, his eyes wandered to absorb the scenery to keep himself occupied from the fact he was mentally naked.

Serena made her way down the ramp, humming a light tune to herself as she carried Hazan’s gift in her hand, smiling as she saw the turian approaching from the opposite direction. ”Hi Haze! I have that gift for you!” She waved the box excitedly, frowning as she looked at him. ”You look despondent again. What’s wrong? Her eyes narrowed. ”Did Vellios threaten you? If he did I swear I’m going to pin his mangy carapace to the damn wall.”

Hazan was approaching the ship, his tool bag hanging from his shoulder and rifle case clasped in a talon, when Serena met him on the ramp. He did look despondent, yes, but only because of the funk he was in. He shook his head in response to her question and chuckled softly.

”Nah, he didn't. He helped cheer me up yesterday, so there's that, I guess. I still feel really bad about everything, but the feeling will pass.”

Hazan gestured at the little box that Serena was holding and raised an eye ridge.

”A gift? For me? Ya shouldn't have, Serena.”

Serena begrudgingly accepted his response, brightening as he gestured at her gift. ”I get that a lot. Here.” She handed it over to him, explaining it as she did so. ”I noticed that you like to listen to music, music I don’t understand but music nonetheless. You don’t seem to have headphones to listen to it, or anything to store it on, and I imagine there’ll come a time when you want to block Dex and Vellios out. So I got you something for that problem.” She ducked her head in shy embarrassment, continuing on in a mumble. ”It has a couple ear buds that can be disconnected if you don’t want to lug around the player itself. It can also store upwards of a thousand songs and voice recordings if you ever need to make a memo or something.

She fidgeted for a moment more. ”If it’s a stupid gift tell me so I can take it back and get you a better one. I’ve been known to make stupid decisions.”

Hazan blushed a dark blue as he took the box and stood there rather awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say.
”I...uh… Thanks, Serena...”

”Is this something that’s a terrible gift? I can take it back if you’d prefer something else. It’s okay to say you don’t like my gift. Really. I’ll take it back and get something you actually like.” Serena said, looking at him anxiously. It appeared that she had made him uncomfortable, which was exactly the opposite of her goal.

He shook his head rather rapidly and smiled.

”No, no! It’s a good gift, Serena. I’m sorry. I’m just...distracted. Heh...I don’t know what possessed me to not buy a music player all these years. I’ve just been using a...y’know what, why don’t I show you? C’mon.”

Hazan chuckled and brushed past Serena politely, making his way into the ship. With her behind him, he made his way to his room near the cockpit. The turian’s quarters were sparsely decorated. Simple colours, no attempts to decorate apart from the cases of equipment and clothes he’d brought with him. A small, cylindrical device sat on his bed, which bounced gently into the air as he sat down. He grabbed the cylinder in his talons and twisted it, which made it light up in a bright blue as music played from both ends. Hazan held up the portable music player and kinda grinned.

”I’ve been using this a lot. Portable speaker synced to my omnitool.”

Serena followed, a small frown of confusion on her face. She glanced only briefly around the room, noting the militaristic style that seemed to be typical of all turians. She made a small note to herself about it, then focused back on Haze as soft rock music began to play. She grinned back at him, eyes darting over it as she tried to unlock it’s secrets by just staring at it ”I like it! Pretty and functional. The best of both worlds!

”I”m glad you like your gift. I worried about it from before purchase up until now.” She smiled sheepishly. ”Anyways, before I run off to give one of the others their gifts, what’s the deal with your bounty? Are we going in blind or do you have a blueprint and patrol patterns of the place hidden around?

”Not totally blind. I have blueprints of their hideout, and where to go. Tonka’s been filling my head with ideas about an ambush though...not sure which I should decide on, really.”

He smirked a little and stretched, placing his speaker back on his desk as he unwrapped the little gift box Serena had given him. The wires and earbuds sat within some foam casing in the box, along with a few connection jacks and wireless dongles. Hazan removed the wires and assorted gadgets from the box and smiled to himself.
”These are perfect, Serena.”

Serena grinned, pleased that he was happy. ”Good. As for the ambush…” She shook her head. ”I don’t think we need to add ‘Wanted for breaking into and killing members of the bounty station on Omega’ to our list of reputations. We just need to go in quick and get out clean, leaving you with a clean slate and a VI that automatically deletes you whenever you’re put in. Serena smiled smugly as she continued. ”Which I happen to possess the skills for.

”All of these plans sound good, dammit! Now I can’t decide on anything.”

He chuckled and sighed, shaking his head.

”Well, ask yourself this. Do you want to just put this all behind you, or do you want blood and vengeance? If you want the former, go in quick and get out clean. The less blood the better. If you want to wreak vengeance and spill a lot of blood, take Tonka’s approach and ambush people. I would prefer the former, but it is your choice not mine. Make your decision on how you feel, not how others do. “

”Mmm...I’ll think about it then, Serena. Thanks for the input. To be honest… It’s kinda the latter, but I really need to just leave a mark, y’know? Tell these people that messing with me isn’t okay, and messing with the people I care about isn’t okay either.”

”Not to pop your touchingly ominous bubble, but the people you’d be ambushing. They’re just Blue Suns and bounty hunters right? You kill a bunch of them, and you’re just going to make the Blue Suns more irritated and raise your price for the bounty hunters, bringing in the more skilled and the less intelligent.” Serena gestured in a vague direction.

”Tonka is thinking like a krogan. And krogan logic dictates that you either kill your enemies or make yourself scary enough not to go after. Which works on Tuchanka. I don’t think it will work with the Suns or your bounty. Proving yourself dangerous will just make you more profitable to take out, and build their reputations as bounty hunters.”

”Mmm… True. I guess… I dunno, I’ll figure out once I actually start dealing with them, Serena. But thanks for the advice. And the headphones.”

He smiled and nodded to her.

”And, um...thanks for everything else, I guess. I still feel sore about letting you down, but at least...I don’t think I blame myself as much any more.”

”Progress! I was beginning to think I’d have to smack you ever time I saw you looking guilty at me.” Serena teased, flicking him lightly on the forehead. ”No need to thank me. You’re my teammate Haze. I’ll go help you fix your problems. I gotta go. Try not to wallow in self guilt to much.” Serena smiled, turning on her heel and beginning to head out the room.

”Ow- hey!” Hazan started a little from the flick to his forehead, but he returned the smile. ”I won’t, Serena. Thanks.”

---

Hazan strode off the deck of the Borealis and onto the docking bay. Dressed casually in a plain shirt, jacket and pants, with earbuds in his ears and attached to a spare (if lifeless) music player, he made his way towards the checkpoint. Hands in pockets, he joined the queue of people lined up to gain entry and reviewed the plan in his head.

During the trip to the station, he'd carefully pored over the maps of the station. Checkpoints, alternate routes, committed to heart and stored within his visor's memory chip. The scout knew he would be unarmed during the course of his infiltration, and even if he could carry a weapon, it'd have to be small. His Predator would suffice, but the other infiltration team would be carrying it, disguised as medical supplies en route to a clinic within the station. In the meantime, he had to rely on his fists and his wits to get past security. No mean feat, considering this was Eclipse they were up against. He and Dex were going to be the first in, doing a sweep of the station floor to identify hazards, other checkpoints and the whereabouts of the merc personnel that patrolled the station. Once they were both in, they were going to split up; while Dex went off to find a place where she could tap into the station's security systems, he was going to plot a route for the others to take to the clinic.

It was going to be a step by step process, just like he'd been trained in. First, he was going to establish a place where he could maintain overwatch on the Infiltration team as they made their entry. A point further ahead of a route he was going to walk alone before the others travelled it. Then, he had to link up with the team as they made their way to a rendezvous point further in the station. Preferably somewhere discreet, like a diner or an eatery. This was where everyone would meet and assume their roles for the second part of the escort. He'd be head of the pack, keeping an eye out for any Eclipse in their way while the rest took Drono to their intended destination. Professional, discreet and organised.

"Sir?"

The nudge to his back snapped him out of his reverie. He glanced around at the giant gap in the queue ahead of him, the irritated human behind him, and chuckled sheepishly.

"Sorry. Was, uh, lost in thought."

Hazan made his way to the checkpoint counter and presented his ID chit, synced to the omnitool on his left arm. He stood still as the LOKI mech behind him did a cursory scan of his body while the official at the counter analysed his ID. The chit was a fake, of course, engineered by Dex to identify him as Neiman Vokil, a tourist from Palaven here for a routine check-up with a family doctor that had moved here from the Citadel. The ship he was on was registered as the Tarvaen, a Turian passenger shuttle and cargo freighter that just so happened to look like everyone's favourite rust bucket, the Borealis.

"Nature of your stay here, sir?"

"Strictly business. I've come to see a family doctor here, moved after he lost business in the Citadel."

The checkpoint officer gave him a once-over, then digitally signed his chit and handed it back to him.

"Have a nice day, sir, and welcome to Lafayette Station."

Hazan gave him a mock salute and grinned as he casually walked off. Unbeknownst to the checkpoint guards, his earbuds weren't actually attached to his broken music player. Instead they were wirelessly synced to his visor, and as he made his way into the throng of people within the station, he tapped a button on his omnitool and opened up the crew's private comms channel.

"This is Haze. I'm in. Plotting a route now, will keep in touch."

Drono stared idly at the screen. HIs head was buzzing with thoughts. His memory stirred and images flashed before his mind. Smells filled his nostrils. It was like a phantom limb to him. Sensations that had no place in his reality anymore, creeping up from the very depths of his memories. And they were clearer then ever. He sat, cleaning his gun, setting together the last pieces of his equipment again and again. He practically hear Yestins steps fading away in the rain on that fateful day. No. Not rain, sprinklers. Their fight getting to the goods had set of the hangars sprinkler system. Little details that had been lost to the drugged haze of his past years were coming back with laser focus now. and with it, feelings that made his entire being quake with rage.

His pain roared like a dull fire all along his nerves. This past week it had gotten worse and worse, soon, the drugs would no longer work enough for him to even try and sleep. Not that he slept very often. He lay, staring up at the nights. Sometimes he went to talk with Dex. She was good at talking, in that she didn’t say much and let him ramble.

He flexed his arm. “Goodbye old friend” He mused softly. “I am leaving you for a younger, more metal arm.” He said as he flexed his arm a little and slid into his civilian clothes. IT felt weird, dressed not for a mission but for something much more ordinary yet just as dangerous. The blue and white hoody was a something he had picked up at their last stop. It was kinda baggy, and didn’t fit him quite right. It was perfect in that regard, it was to plain to draw attention, and obscured his build. He looked at his carnifex and hesitated. It was as much a piece of him as his weird, quirky mannerism. But Haze had been very adamant he didn’t lug one of the biggest handguns in the galaxy around when it was something of his trademark.

He began to make his way to the gangway. “Here goes nothing” He said to himself. All the while stopped by the gangway and waited inside, out of sight for now. The station had more of the Eclipse mercs then he had expected. But he knew Yestin wouldn’t rely to much on the the mercenaries. He was using them because they provided security at Lafayette. He didn’t want any scuff with them nor would waste resources on some cripple. They were right that he had to deal with Yestin sooner or later. A day that seemed to be much sooner then anticipated.

“Allright.” He said. “Good luck Haze. I am on standby, waiting for my… escort was it?” Haze had taken the time to school him on terms and codes and behaviors of a proper VIP. Drono had taken it in stride, nodding and looking attentive. While he was likely as sneaky as they got, drono had none of the other formal training. His training came from years as a career criminal. Very hands on learning and very lax with terms such as VIP, Escort as it were.

Dex

It had been a grueling week and a half for Dex and Serena. They worked night and day getting the crew’s security up to snuff, preparing themselves as well. All nighters working away in front of consoles or at work benches, chatting lightly or complaining loudly about how badly someone’s previous security protocols were. The loud complaints were often followed by painful cackling, ignoring how long they had gone without sleep. Occasionally Tanya’s laugh could be heard beneath the Yolac, working on her own prep. Serena helped Dex with coding while Dex helped her customize some of the drones. Drono came by often enough, he kept her company while she worked or if she needed a change in scenery she’d wander over to engineering to work off her omnitool.

She examined herself in the mirror, long sleeved coat she scrounged up from an old locker on the Borealis. It was old, brown, had patches in the pockets. Her focus would be playing the part at blending, invisibility - a drifter.

Dex plotted out their initial entrance with Haze, hiding simplified maps in her omnitool while similarly to Haze dressed down to civilian duds. The bonus part being it hid the majority of her arm. Simply picking from the false identities she crafted over the years, worked hard to keep their profiles squeaky clean. It was a breeze to get past security, the id she used was for her hard on the times, Pomponia - Pom for short, the mechanic. Drumming up a little sympathy for her and her old mechanical arm acting up again, too far out to make it back to Inner Council Space to see her proper doctor. While security commented on her being in a shit place to look for turian health care, she might get lucky with a prescription. Thankfully skipping over a thorough examination of her omnitool, not that they would have any luck finding anything. Knowing Eclipse was here had her bolster her own security largely out of paranoia. She had spent the night before landing running simulations.

“Thanks for the tip, wouldn’t have stopped ya’know if it wasn’t as bad as it is. Shady fucker who did the surgery never fixed the problems he made.”

The security guard laughed, “Sure. Good luck, ma’am.”

She came in after Haze of course but it was as simple as that. Reasonable distraction, that would have their eyes pass over her before long. Following the general gaggle of people entering the station her eyes drifted over the Eclipse security stationed everywhere. Haze was nowhere in sight, she adopted the ‘completely lost stranger’ to the point where a few stopped her and gave her directions. She kept moving, wondering down quiet corridors before finding her maintenance access with a few workers going about their own days. She watched them waiting for the workers to move on to their next site making note of the couple security cameras posted on the outside of the main access doors. When they moved on she hit the cameras directly with a scrambler over her omnitool, taking control of them. Adjusting their sights away when she entered herself, the hum and noise of the station masked the door opening. Stepping in she checked all the corners, found her access panel and went to work herself.

From maintenance access it had general maps of the station, immediately sending them off to Haze as soon as she found them. With the bolstered tech from Serena, hacking past their generally decent security tiers wasn’t nearly as much work as she was expecting. She downloaded maps of the station and the underground hatches lining up with sites similar to the one she was sitting in. It was easy to find the doctor’s office Drono needed to be in and the route they could take to get there undetected. She opened up her secure communication lines speaking to everyone.

“Alright guys, I’ve cracked through the first walls of security for Lafayette, it’ll take more time to delve deeper. Haze I sent you all the maps I could find, same with the escort team. Noted the best routes around Eclipse stationed guards, still working on where they’re storing their equipment. Can’t quite fool the entrance scanners yet so be careful on entry. If you need a camera to look another way, if you need access to a hatch, or someone to make a phony call to pull some security guard away, call me. Comm lines are secure to use.” Dex spoke. “Remember, keep the risk low and I’m going to remind you guys that this shit depends on being sneaky. Call me if you’re stuck.”

“Good luck.”

Khosin spent most of the week and a half worth of travel time that it took the Riggers to get to Lafayette Station in a state that wavered between unease and calmness. On one hand he knew what his job entailed, act as a distraction for the rest of the crew while on the station, and that knowledge helped to ease his nerves when his thoughts inevitably turned towards the mission, the fact that -as a Batarian in a, mostly, human-populated station- he was absolutely certain he could easily create a distraction also helped to smooth over the small anxiety he felt towards the mission. On the other hand, the fact that there wasn't much that he could do certainly helped to left him feeling anxious when he thought about the coming mission. He didn't have the technical know-how to help Dex and Serena with the matter of the crew's security, nor could he help Haze with plotting a course through the station since his knowledge when it came to human settlements was limited to planetside settlements and, even if there wasn't much difference between the layout of a space station and a regular city, how to use the terrain to prepare ambushes to either kill or capture people or where to strike to cause the maximum amount of damage or panic, and he doubted that kind of knowledge would be of any use to Haze when planning a route through the station. Not to mention he didn't want to wind up in a situation where the Turian scout would ask him where, or how, he came by that knowledge.

As such he spent most of the trip training or checking on the engine of the Borealis once in a while, occasionally performing some light maintenance on the old machine. As such it was almost a relief for the Batarian when they arrived, that is until he remembered that they'd have to go through a security checkpoint before entering the station proper. Donning regular civilian clothes, Khosin made his way out of the Borealis and towards the security checkpoint shortly after Vellios, Dex, and Haze had done so.

Arriving at the entrance leading towards the security checkpoint Khosin took a deep breath as he stared at the doors that led towards the security station "Relax Khosin, it's just like going through C-sec customs back on the Citadel." He told himself in an effort to relax, even though he knew that the present situation was nothing alike going through the usual screening on the Citadel "At the very least I can get lucky and get an Asari or a Salarian officer." He thought humorlessly, knowing that the people manning the security station would most likely be humans and that the recent Skyllian Blitz would make the whole thing less than pleasant "Though, given how everyone thinks of us Batarians nowadays, I'd probably get shit from just about anybody nowadays and with good reason to boot." He mused, shaking his head slightly.

Letting out the breath he had been holding, Khosin took the few steps that remained between himself and the door. Once the door opened Khosin immediately crossed the door's threshold and almost instantaneously felt the room's mood tense when the guards took notice of him. "Step to the middle of the room." He heard one of the approaching guards say, shoving him slightly towards the center of the room. Letting out an exasperated sigh, and once he had regained his footing after the push, Khosin made his way towards the spot that he had been pushed.

"Alright, stay in the middle of the room while we scan you. You better have nothing hidden on your person, furthermore you are required to answer any and all questions that we might ask you before you are allowed entrance into the residential areas of Lafayette Station understand?" Spoke the guard with barely concealed contempt, Khosin's reaction being a mere affirmative nod.

"Alright, first question, full name, birthplace, and current residence."

"Grothan Had'serah, born on Vana and currently living on Omega." Said Khosin, hoping that the fake IDs that Dex had made for the crew would fool the guards if they tried to confirm what he had told them. "Alright, luckily for you, everything seems to be in order." Grumbled the guard in annoyance. However just as Khosin was relaxing and everything seemed to be going fine the scanner began beeping loudly, having detected something.

Before the Batarian could open his mouth every guard, with the exception of one who was manning the scanner in a nearby booth, had their guns trained on him. He could see that the guards were itchy for any excuse to hurt him, preferably something that permitted them to put a bullet in his head without getting into too much trouble. "Well, well, what do we have here, according to our scanner you have a Gemini Bio-Amp tucked in that head of yours." Said the guard manning the booth, a revelation that caused the rest of the guards to put their fingers on the trigger of their weapons.

"Why are you here you four-eyed freak, the rest of your slaving friends send you out to scout Lafayette huh? Maybe they expected you to disable our security systems so that they could collar us while we sleep, right?" Asked another guard, his voice tense as he spoke. "That's the reason why I came, got in a fight on Omega when some people tried to enter my house there. Got quite a beating and while the bruises have healed I was a little afraid that might implant might have gotten rattled, I don't trust the doctors on Omega, they would be as likely to cut open my skull to get the implant as they are to help me, and I had heard good things about Lafayette's doctors so I came here." Spoke Khosin, coming up with the lie on the spot. It was a safe lie as crimes were a near-constant on Omega and the lack of a proper government, unless one considered Aria's control over the station a sort of 'government', meant that there was no way for them to find out that he was lying.

The guards seemed to relax, for a given value of the word, after Khosin was done spinning his little story, but he still noticed that more than a few gun barrels were discreetly pointed towards him, or at least it would have been if not for the fact that as a Batarian he had four eyes and catching up little details like those was a relatively easy thing for his kind to do or at least it was for those that ended up working as either smugglers or mercenaries. The scan, and the question, continued for what felt like an hour, but eventually Khosin was told to exit the security checkpoint into the station proper, but not without one last warning that at the first sing of trouble they'd 'eject his slaving ass from the nearest waste disposal system' as one of the guards put it.

With the security checkpoint behind him Khosin breathed out in relief. "Finally out of that damned place." He thought with exasperation, checking the Rigger's comm channel and listening to the message that Dex had spoken. "I'm inside Lafayette, sorry for the radio silence I thought it'd be best to turn my omni-tool off before entering the security checkpoint." He explained "One thing, my Bio-Amp got picked up by whatever scanner they are using...not sure if they'll raise a fuss for you guys like they did with me, but I thought it'd be best to warn you. Regardless, I'm on standby if any of you guys need a distraction." Said Khosin before promptly closing his omni-tool and making his way towards the clinic that they were taking Drono to, the people of Lafayette turning to look at Khosin as he walked through the streets of the space station.

Serena had bags under her eyes. It had been a long week and half, with almost no sleep and seemingly endless coding. By the end of it, she couldn't even muster the energy to nag some of the others for their terrible security. She had spent all of yesterday catching up on sleep, shoving in earbuds as she rolled into her makeshift bed in the hangar. Fortunately, Tanya kept her blaring death metal to a minimum and Serena slept like the dead, waking up only when Vellios shook her as they pulled into the docking bay of Lafayette station. She sipped her coffee, eyeing all the LOKI bots and the few organic guards that guarded the entrance. She was in civilian clothes, worn pants with a grease stained shirt. She rolled her eyes as Vellios leaned against the wall next to her.

"You'll be fine you big baby. You'd be stripped of your knives as soon as the scanners sensed them anyway, and they'd be more of a hassle than anything else. You want several dozen of those amazingly well built and beautiful LOKIs coming down on you with guns raised? That'd give the mission up before it even began. Then we'd get in a fire fight and the Eclipse would kill all of us because there is no way in hell that we'd be allowed to leave. So just calm down, and try not to flinch when someone moves near you."

She watched as another LOKI walked past and sighed wistfully. "Can't we steal one on the way out? I'm sure I could rip out anything that would have the Eclipse tracking it?" She glanced at Vellios's face and her shoulders slumped in defeat. "I know, I know, we can't take the risk. But, if one just happens to stumble onto the ship, it won't be our fault now will it?" She held up her free hand. "Don't worry, they'll all stay here, free of my influence to bring them into a loving home.

She waited while the others filed their way through the checkpoints, a few of them carrying the crates of the groups weapons and gear. Serena held her breath and muttered prayers as each went through the check point. When it finally came her turn to head through the checkpoint, she drew in a deep breath and looked at Vellios, smiling. "Wish me luck!" She headed towards the checkpoint, carrying her own container of gear. As she grew closer she muttered one last prayer under her breath, praying her progarm will block the scanner one last time, before putting on a smile.

The guard's tone was bored as he checked her scans. "Name?"

"Patrica Doyle." Serena answered immediately. She'd been practicing the entire time she'd been waiting. It didn't stop her heart from pounding as she waited to be discovered and shot.

"Purpose of visit?"

"I heard that this was a good place to set up shop. I've been repairing medical equipment since I could hold a tool. Figure a place like this could use my skills. Brought all my tools with me." She gestured to the container as it was being scanned by a LOKI. The guard grunted something under his breath that Serena couldn't quite catch. "Alright, everything checks out. Keep the biotics to a bare minimum and we won't have any problems."

Serena kept herself from heaving a sigh of relief. Everything had worked! "Thank you!" She grabbed her container and moved on, hopefully before anyone saw how shaky she was. She stationed herself a short distance away in a small cafe and brought up her omni-tool. She smiled as she got Dex's message. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. Just gonna sit here in this cafe and access their LOKI network. Someone needs to swing by and grab my crate of gear though. I'm at the Doctor's Order Cafe. I might be able to give you some eyes on the ground with the LOKI, cause some false alarms, get some allies if necessary, or even just cause them all to do something crazy like start restraining eclipse members. I'll definitely will be able to stop them from all rushing us if we get discovered." She brought up the network security and smiled. "Oooh. This'll be fun."

A week of planning and preparation had gone by slow, with Iosif still having spent the majority of his time working, resting and thinking matters out at his station in the bridge. Often, he found himself comforted more by the embrace of his pilot's seat than that of the cramped, shared bunk space set aside elsewhere in the ship and so he'd been able to use it as an excuse whilst events drew closer. Dex, or Pomponia as she had chosen as a cover for this job, had already been over things with a rather meticulous level of detail, putting the rest of them to shame - Iosif included. In his case, he'd committed the station schematics both to memory (albeit in a rough form) and to his Omni-Tool, though his own approach to cloak-and-dagger would probably have left something to be desired.

Not as if there was any other form of recourse at this point, though - they had committed, so had he. Seated in the pilot's chair, Iosif had been the one to send the docking hail as the station came up on their sensors and, shortly after, into view.

True to form, Lafayette station bore all the hallmarks of being another bastard offshoot of the System's Alliance, one of many outposts which had been hastily dropped into orbit in the early days before being sold and partitioned off to anyone who was foolhardy enough to try and make such an investment. There, the original structure had been rendered barely recognisable to his eyes and that in itself was only because he'd seen his share of them during his service. In a strange way, it was somewhat inspiring to know that people had still managed to carve out a living here - though such a notion was quickly forgotten when one recalled that an outfit like Eclipse was this place's biggest investor.

And on that last thought, it had not eluded his notice that there was a small but nontheless intimidating contingent of Eclipse vessels positioned in various defensive positions around the station, clearly intended as a deterrent more than anything but still more than capable of reducing a ship such as the Borealis to tissue paper if their full wrath was incurred. It was enough for a knot to briefly form in the pilot's stomach from that knowledge alone.

Breaking that train of thought, however, was the response to his earlier hail, the nasal voice of a human male. "Docking hail received, align with traffic and proceed to station D-7."

He exhaled, then began to manoeuvre the Borealis into place, following the direction of the station's traffic control as an illustration of the dock became highlighted in the cockpit's display. It didn't take too long to pass through and soon enough the ship came to a halt. All it took was the familiar thrum of the station's magnetic clamps fixing into place to signal that it was time to unload.

Though, in Iosif's case it didn't take long. He'd already packed a small case with a few essentials, which included a handheld welding tool and a cut down M-3 Predator which was always good for keeping concealed on his person in those troublesome moments. No armour or anything otherwise too bulky, in this case - at least then he could pass his baggage off as tools.

Dressing practically, he'd thrown a black jacket over a dark gray vest and kept his cargo pants, whilst for for the purpose of keeping his barcode covered up, he'd hung a grease-stained bandana around his neck and tucked the front end into his neckline. Long sleeves and a pair of gloves rendered his arm mundane to the naked eye - though it wasn't so much the arm itself as the fact it had the potential to make him stand out in a crowd that he had an issue. The less distinguishing features, the better. All in all, he looked like your average pilot, cargo hauler, mechanic, whatever one might've associated with that 'class' of work and that suited him just fine.

Iosif waited for a short while, giving some of the others to trickle past the entry checkpoints first, before deciding that there was a window open for him based on their clandestine comms chatter. Approaching one of the terminals, he was stopped by a fellow human in Eclipse apparel, fumbling with an Omni-Tool and after a moment of running through the usual routine, he was prompted for his details,.

"Name?" The guard asked, unenthusiastic.

"Artyom Poroshenko." Iosif had mentally rehearsed the cover ID that Dex had set up for him enough to recallthe name without trouble.

"Purpose of visit?" Boredom and perhaps fatigue at the monotonous nature of such a task gave away the fact that this man probably loahed this side of the job. Still better than getting shot at, though.

"Business and leisure," Iosif answered, before leading on with a questionof his own, "Know where I can get a decent drink around here?"

"Hrm," The guard grunted, then idly jabbed a thumb in the direction behind him, "Depends on your taste, there's a cantina of a sorts just after this terminal. Drinks are good, but avoid the varren kebabs unless you want a nasty case of scale itch."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, whoever came up with the name must've had a sense of irony. The Doctor's Order." A brief ,almost forced chuckle escaped the guard's mouth and Iosif found himself snorting along, just for the sake of blending in, before the man pivoted and gestured towards the rest of the station with a free hand. "Go on ahead, anyway, you're clear."

Wordlessly, Iosif tilted his head upwards to the guard and proceeded inside, baggage and all. Judging from Serena's last hail, he figured it would be best to get a hand on her crate and link up with her at this cafe which sold the shady kebabs, perhaps. "On it, Serena. You'll get your things."

Hopefully things wouldn't go to shit, this time.

The days passed by somewhat quickly, the preparation for assignments always taking up most the day. Despite not having more than a few idle chats with people in that time, there was a sense of community and purpose that had persisted amongst the Jury Riggers that had survived the clusterfuck on Virmire. Even encounters with Vellios didn’t seem so forced since Tanya and him and had their heart-to-heart following the unfortunate incident that threatened to throw everything to the wolves. For once, everything seemed to be somewhat okay, and the people she lived with and worked with were starting to become friends and develop legitimate feelings for one another. Everyone was on board with helping Drono get better. There was no financial payoff here, no bounty to be claimed. It was because someone they cared about was in need, and it was enough.

Still, despite all of this, Tanya had the memorial service lingering in her mind, mentally crunching numbers to see if the team would be able to make it to Terra Nova in time or if she’d have to find her own way with the intention of meeting up later. A picture frame of her father sat on the table next to her terminal, Eric Carson’s smile and crisp uniform a constant source of reassurance and comfort throughout her ears of self-imposed exile. Did Belle Carson even think about her estranged daughter? What was she up to these days? Tanya always thought she’d go back to Earth to reconnect with family there, but after close to 30 years, how could one just go back to another world and hope to pick up where you left off? Terra Nova was home, just not the one Belle was hoping for. Her husband killed, her daughter a traumatized wreck who needed support more than ever… all of it was just too much for Belle to handle. She lost her shit and forced Tanya out of her home, which she recalled was becoming quite run down and dishevelled as time went on. Her mother needed somebody, but she sure as hell didn’t want it from a daughter that reminded her that the Systems Alliance cost her a husband and a daughter. Would she even be at the memorial? Would she acknowledge Tanya, try to make amends? There were a lot of unanswered, supremely anxious questions that had no answers.

A hard drink of whiskey helped quell them, for now.

Focusing on the matter at hand, Tanya had a pair of blue coveralls that were of a similar shade, but different trim and manufacture than what she’d seen from pictures on the Extranet of what the service workers on Lafayette wore, and she noticed that headwear was decidedly non-standardized, so a black patrol cap seemed to be the order of the day, which wasn’t unheard of in remote former Alliance territories as casual headwear. A hard hat was a hard hat, and she definitely had a couple of those kicking around. Twirling casually between her fingers was the fake identity chit that she’d had for a few years since the electronics warfare specialist of her platoon back in the 63rd, Vasquez, pulled some strings and managed to make some authentic-seeming fake IDs for everyone for when it came time for shore leave and making sure that none of the platoon’s shenanigans managed to make it back up to their superiors. She’d used it a few times, having it modified twice now with her fake alias, Veronica Piers, just with a few credentials changed from time to time. She’d passed it on to Dex to make some further modifications that she was a contractor for Sword & Shield Electrical, one of the civilian contractor companies on Lafayette that helped keep the infrastructure maintained, and it was easy enough to access the company’s online webpage and have Dex hack into the host’s server to made some edits to the employee page so “Veronica’s” name would pop up, as well as a carefully planted picture or two on the site that didn’t show her face, but definitely would passed muster if someone looked it up.

Tanya just hoped that the company itself didn’t regularly check on their own IP.

A plan in motion, Tanya kept working on her end of things until Iosif made an announcement on intercom that they were on the approach to the station. Heading up to the bridge, Tanya leaned on the back of Iosif’s seat to look out through the view port at the station. It was familiar, in an Alliance sort of way, but a lot of work had evidentially been done to it to expand its size and shipping capacity, which was way more than anywhere out in the middle of nowhere had the right to be. She studied the Eclipse vessels, patrolling like sentinels around the station and the system for signs of trouble. The dark yellow paintjob and familiar black sun logo were visible on all of them; they definitely weren’t trying to keep a low profile. Everything about the Eclipse presence portrayed a dominating confidence that they were the unchallenged masters of this system, unlike Omega where threats existed from a number of rival factions that were eager to take what they had. On Lafayette, however, they seemed more than eager to boast their strength to intimidate troublemakers or to give themselves a more impressive profile for prospective clients and recruits.

After being granted docking permission, Iosif took the Borealis into the assigned docking space and the mission began in earnest. Giving the others a chance to disembark first, Tanya slipped out when she figured eyes would be off of the ship and with a tool bag strapped over her shoulder and an armful of emergency pylons, Tanya walked to one of the more secluded looking maintenance hatches that was obviously watched over by security feeds and the LOKI mechs. What she was counting on was her casual body language and faked credentials to sate the mechs and any of the Eclipse members who were checking cameras today. She rather hoped they were lazy and not paying close attention to the monitors. Setting four pylons on each corner of the hatch, Tanya managed to open the lock with her omni-tool when predictably, one of the LOKI mechs came marching over.

<Identification please.> The mech stated in a feminine and dull voice.

Tanya handed over her faked identity chit for inspection, clenching her teeth as the mech scanned the chit, evidentially satisfied with the credentials. <Welcome, Ms. Piers. This intrusion into the maintenance tunnels is not logged on my systems. Elaborate.> it commanded.

”Certainly. S&S has noticed a 14% increase in false positives for intrusion alarms in the service corridors and we want to check to make sure that something wasn’t smuggled on the station that’s been eating at the wires and that all the terminals are properly connected. Curtis Myers, my foreman, lost the master key that I programmed shortly after I left the station for vacation and I was called back. With what Eclipse is paying us, we didn’t want to let this slide, and we didn’t want them to catch wind that their contractor has been leaving loopholes open.” she explained to the mech.

<Acknowledged. Event logged for review. Proceed, Ms. Piers, and have a safe and productive day.> the mech said, turning on a dime and marching back to its position. Tanya slipped into the hatch and closed it above her, locking the mechanism from within. After making her way down the tunnel, her omni-tool lit up and began tracing the signal carrying wires until she eventually came to the first service terminal. The team’s voice comms were recorded into text files for her to read at her leisure, and she mentally took note of who already made their passage through customs. She keyed her own voice comms.

”Hello boys and girls, your favorite techie has found her way into the bowels of the station and given enough time and get into just about any of the station’s non-essential functions from these terminals down here. Only things I can’t do much about are Eclipse tech since its on its own network, but I can at least get you into the door and disengage alarm callouts, open and close doors, and isolate problematic things like patrolling mechs if you guys need it. My access has been logged by one of the LOKIs, so I say we have a good half hour, forty minutes before someone reviews the log at worst, a couple hours at best unless someone can access the mech’s database or individually hack into LOKI unit 423-A.” she said, recalling the serial number imprinted on the mech’s breastplate. Given that the LOKI units were being used as pseudo law enforcement, the public needed a way to identify the mechs they interacted with. ”How are we looking?” she asked everyone.

Serena idly hummed to herself as she made her way through the LOKI network, smiling as she heard Tanya’s message. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you erased from their records in a jiff. It’ll be like we were never here. Well, you were never chatting to the LOKI. I’m pretty sure we’re still gonna appear on their cameras...you get the point.” She quickly located the robot that had taken Tanya’s lie and began searching through its data banks. That would be her trail to follow all the way to the end, deleting every bit of evidence that Tanya had ever even spoken to the robot.

As she was shifting through, looking for Tanya, her commlink beeped on a private channel. Switching to it, she gave a half distracted, “Hello?”

Dex sat crossed legged at her makeshift terminal, listening to the radio chatter herself. Working through a firewall, carefully guiding the security VI’s into circles. A little bored she decided to bother Serena, “This is Dex contacting Serena on our secret private channel, so.”

She paused dumping garbage data on another VI. “How about that Firu?”

Serena didn’t even so much as blink, engrossed in carefully deleting Tanya’s presence from the LOKI network. Finally in what was entirely her element, Serena was focused and missed and subtle hints and teasing. Distractedly and disinterestedly, she replied. “She’s fine. Knows how to stitch most of us back together and keep us alive in spite of the most horrid of wounds, and seems to know her way around a fight. And she likes cooking. Solid asset to the team.”

She gave a small victory chuckle as she fully deleted Tanya from the LOKI’s memory banks, editing the time frame she just deleted.

Pulling a wire from the fuse box and plugging it into her makeshift terminal with a disappointed grunt, “Is that all? Or did you not happen to notice her other solid ass-sets.”

A new set of code ran across her screen, furiously tapping across the holographic keys to tie it down. “Disappointing me here Serena.”

Some of Dex’s implications slipped through Serena’s concentration, and she felt herself begin to color. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She hoped her voice sounded confident and not at all like she was lying. Her face scrunched in annoyance as she came across a firewall, tapping away at the omni-tool on her arm to get past it.

“Hey, I’m doing just fine thank you very much. The LOKI will obey my commands and Tanya won’t be in their systems for much longer.”

Dex’s talons paused across the keyboard then took a moment, humming her amusement. Serena couldn’t lie even over an e-mail let alone an audio channel. “Oh, okay. Then you wouldn’t be able to tell me about what brand of pants Firu wears? Starts with a J or what spice she cooks all the human meals with. I think she said it was…” Dex waited her mandibles pulling up in a toothy turian smile. “Sriracha?”

Against her will, the two names Dex was hinting at popped into Serena’s mind in an instant. She resisted cursing, not wanting to give the turian the pleasure, and scowled at the omni-tool as she slipped past the firewall and moved closer to the central data of the LOKI network.

“No, I wouldn’t. I don’t think she wears jeans though? Not from the brief glimpses I’ve gotten. Looks like AdoniStyles if I had to guess. As for spices, for one, Sriracha is a sauce, for two I think she uses Saffron? Not that well versed in spiceology, but I’ve heard her mention that name once or twice.”

Her head quietly hit the table she was sitting at. Smooth. Way to prove you have no idea what either of those things were.

“Brief glimpses you say? Sauce from spice? I think you do have an idea of some of Firu’s assets, my virginal friend. After your drunken dancing with her I thought you’d have figured out a few more things, and if it wasn’t for the LOKI in front of you right now you’d be spilling all your weirdly observant notes about her to me right now.” Dex said rather bluntly.

“Can’t fool me.”

She connected the sabotaged LOKI’s to her backlog, flagging them for notifications. “Nice work on the mechs by the way.”

“I-it’s not weird.” Serena replied, defensive and embarrassed. She could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks. “You’re just as observant as I am! Granted, you typically do it while doing whatever spy stuff you do, but my point stands!” She muttered something about a ‘damn rhythmless turian’ and ‘can fool you in chess’ as she quickly finished up deleting Tanya from the records of the LOKI network.

“Thanks, I should have more soon, provided someone doesn’t keeping trying to convince herself of this ridiculous notion I have a crush on Firu.” She replied, with even more defensiveness in her tone than before.

“No convincing needed, already believe you have a big crush on her. It’s obvious to just about everyone else, save Firu herself. Granted she doesn’t know you yet but will given a little more time. Anyway I’m going to finish up here and I’ll ‘see’ you guys at the cafe.” Dex laughed closing the private channel, taking a little satisfaction of getting the last word in.

Serena sputtered incoherently, blushing bright red, as Dex closed the channel. She waited a few moments, gathering herself. When she felt she could speak in a steady tone, giving no indication that Dex had gotten to her, she opened the main comm channel again. “Don’t worry Tanya, you’re already erased. It’s like you never even existed. I’ve got a fair amount of LOKI under my control, working on the others. If the shit hits the fan, we’ll have the advantage.”

Nerves had never been an issue for him, strictly speaking. Some people collapsed when the shit hit the fan. Some people recoiled from mistakes rebounding to hit them in the face. Some stumble over their own feet when the chips are down and the pile is just too big. Not so for Drono, who despite everything was still alive. Tenacity, luck and the dance of adrenaline was what had kept him alive. Yet now, as the go ahead was being given, his entire body seized up for a second. It wasn’t from the pain of his spine, ever closer to reaching a state of permanent necrosis.

No. This was different. This was the feeling of apprehension he hadn’t felt in nearly ten years. Here were people who had been complete strangers to him before, risking everything for him, a half assed, off the cuff rogue. The thought made him smile as he pulled his hood up. He never looked very imposing to begin with, but the way he moved now was that of a weary, agitated but harmless traveler.

‘Balto’ as he now called himself, was a drell of mediocre talent, stuck in a dead end job as accountant. He had gotten a nasty virus on his last job, and was only here to pick up some medication. And to get a green light to deeper into citadel space as a “non-risk carrier.” Vellios was going to be his escort inside, with Firu to act as the medical advisor who vouched for his safety. He was pretty happy with the disguise.

“Alright boys and girls. Go time.” He spoke into his com device. He didn’t stroll up towards the checkpoint. He merely strolled, affixing the annoyed and hurried expression of someone who was meant to be there but didn’t want to. A large human hand encased in some pretty high quality armor reached out to stop him.

“Welcome to Lafayette, what is the purpose of your visit Sir?” The man behind the visor was staring him down.

So, they are on the lookout for Drell, without a doubt. He gave the guard the most laconic smile he could muster. “I am here to get checked so I can resume my travels. I got all my forms filled out, here.” He whipped out the falsified medical documents they whipped up on the trip. Several of them warned about the dangers of fraternizing with “Balto” in any way.

“How is this not quarantine?”

“Oh no. I got cleared as a non-vector. Look at 88-IG-ORD66-SW.” He pointed out the centerpiece of his little fraud. The merc read through it twice then nodded. “Ok. So, as long as you don’t spread your… love so to speak... Got it.” The guard shuddered as “Balto” strolled through the controls. There was a beep, and the guard motioned for him to stop. As he folded up his visor “What's that in your pocket.” He began only for Drono to sneeze, and the guard almost doubled back over his own lower body in an attempt not to get it on his face.

“Oh? Are you ok. You look a bit pale.” Drono said as he fished up the mechanical pencil.That was stuffed with high explosives. “Just a real pen sir. Every accountant’s token of office.” He said at the guard who was still trying to save face by straightening up.

“Alright. Be off with you. Don’t stay longer then you have to.” The guard said with a tone that would not hear any arguments. Drono simply nodded and continued to move towards the meet up café.

---

Sliding down into a seat next to the earlier arrivals he said. “All Right. I gave the guard something to do. When they run Balto through checks later, they will be surprised to find I have routed them through three legal firms. Thanks to Dex.“ He said as he looked at the gathered crew.

“Allright. Now comes the tricky part. Getting me in and out without me dying. Ideas?” He shot them all a look while twirling his little pen turned grenade.

Vellios casted a look in Serena’s direction when her chiding him about his daggers caught his attention, his expression twisted into an unamused by it. His arms were still crossed over his chest firmly when she commented on the LOKI, dreamingly wishing one would walk its way onto the ship, causing his mandibles to wiggle in disapproval. His glare said it. No stealing from the Eclipse, even if they had a high chance of getting away with it. Currently the only thing that matter was Drono’s medical condition and he knew anyone that placed that into jeopardy would’ve felt the wrath of the crew.

He felt this was not the best time to test their patience or how strong their connections were. The scarred turian eyed Serena carefully as she broke off from him, her steps bring her toward the security checkpoint and moved through. He would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t tense when she slipped through purely because his pessimistic nature gnawed at him that something was going to go all wrong.

Among the final individuals to head through, Vellios let air back into his lungs as the stinging faded when he began to breath easily. Slipping through the checkpoint as Orick Deros was simple thanks to Dex’s tinkering within the security. Once through, his head turned to Dex’s direction then managed slip her a subtle and flirty wink under the radar on route to the cafe.

--------

The ‘Doctor’s Orders’. Vellios smirked at the cafe’s title as he entered the door, his eyes scanned immediately for his teammates’ whereabouts. However, he didn’t just quickly mosey over to the nearest one just yet. He studied for the best and most natural opportunity to get close to one then gradually collect them all into one spot without drawing attention.

Among those he spotted, there was Serena, Iosif, Drono, Haze, Firu and Tonka. Each of them doing their own thing for the mission and coming off less suspicious than normal. Part of him was a bit disappointed not to spy their favorite little eavesdrop, Dex, waiting in the shadows but he knew she would turn up in her own unique way. She was full of surprises like that.

His figure moved toward the counter and leaned upon it, his attention turned to the bartender. The human, an aging man in his early thirties and sturdy built, twisted about with a customer service tone Vellios had heard many times. It was one of someone experience and tired of the same shitty work.

“What will you have?” He gruffed out.

“Something hard as today’s going to be a real doozy of a day.”

The human raised his eyebrow then began to lower for a bottle of Turian Brandy, pouring Vellios a shot and slid it over. His salt and pepper moustache fluffed with each word that slipped his thin lips, “From the look of ye, I find that hard to believe.”

Vellios chuckled and paid with two chits as he gave a Turian smirk, “Meeting a few friends I haven’t seen since we all served on the same ship a few years back and I have no idea how much they have changed now. It’s enough to give anyone… how do you humans say it? Butterflies in the stomach?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“By the way, wish me luck. I spot a few of them already and won’t be long before they nag on me for not joining them. I might be coming back for a few more drinks.”

As he moved from the counter, Vellios took his drink with him but didn’t take a single sip. Mostly the beverage was for show rather than actually drinking. It wasn’t to say he wasn’t tempted to say fuck it and down it regardless. Likely by the end of this meeting, he would.

He didn’t have to provide a cover story in a roundabout way but honestly, it was less odd having a bunch of friends getting reacquainted instead of a bunch of random strangers huddling suspiciously together. Like predicted, the bartender didn’t glimpse in his direction.

Casually, he slid over to sit with Firu and Tonka. His voice had a teasing tone to it as he spoke to the human female, “Hello sweetheart, how’s life treating you? Still as lovely as I last remembered you.”

When he caught the end of Drono’s question, Vellios replied into his collar communicator in a subtle fashion as he 'adjusted' it, “First let's make sure everyone’s able to listen before we’re forced to repeat ourselves. Those I don't see, sound off if you can hear this and I hope it's crystal.”

It took a bit of arguing with the newest addition of the team, but eventually it was decided that it wasn't worth the risk of trying to bring guns through customs or risking losing medical equipment by bringing materials through and having to ditch them. Firu would simply be looking for medical supplies for the ship with Tonka as her bodyguard; it was a plausible enough alibi with the added benefit that it helped explain why the Borealis came all the way out to Lafayette Station. True to form, both managed to get past the LOKI mech doing the inspection without much in the way of a fuss. They might not have had guns, but they did have their omni-tools. If they cared that Tonka's tool in particular had weapon algorithms, they didn't show it. Considering he didn't use a fake identification and his last confirmed check in was when he was working for Alisia Donari's enterprise and a few odd visits to reputable worlds afterwards during his "retirement", there wasn't anything that would show up on his record as particularly alarming other than the "Species - Krogan" field on the identification. Krogan really didn't need guns a lot of the time; they were weapons in their own right.

The pair made their way through customs and to some shitty pub called Doctor's Orders by someone who thought they were being clever, probably a Salarian. The whole station was like one of those awful tourist trap towns that revolve around a singular theme, including a candy shop that was called The Best Medicine. As a species that could heal from just about anything shy of getting his brains blown out or multiple organ failure, Tonka hated this place. Even the pub had shot glasses that looked like comically oversized syringes. It was where the team was meeting up, so he just had to put up with it instead of cornering some dumb bastard in a dark corner, knocking them out and stealing their sidearm.

As he settled into a seat that was way too small for his frame, Tonka recalled reading about this town on Earth called Roswell, New Mexico that had apparently made a shitload of tourist money following an alien conspiracy theme only for first contact to happen and completely ruin the stupid little green bug-eyed aliens they figured extraterrestrial life to look like because humans lacked imagination. Where were the spikes and hundreds of rows of teeth? Formless midgets were not intimidating, just try to take a Volus robbing you seriously. He recalled that Roswell was quick to try and reinvent itself as an alien resort town, desperately trying to lure Citadel races to the town with hard to ignore discounts. For what they lacked in imagination, humans made up for with being able to take a shit situation and adapt it in a way that could potentially be profitable or at least go out in an ambitious blaze of glory. He supposed that Lafayette was in a similar vein; abandoned Alliance outpost re-purposed as one of the premiere medical hot spots in the galaxy.

After ordering "Just throw a bunch of crap together in the biggest glass you have", he watched as Vellios approached, rolling his eyes as he immediately set to flirting with Firu. It was only a matter of time before he brought scale itch onto the ship, the way he was going.



Moving through the service tunnels was a rather crammed experience and there wasn't enough room for Tanya to stand upright. Navigating the dimly lit corridors semi-crouched over, she feared for her back if she couldn't stretch out soon. She eventually made her way to another terminal that was hooked up to the Northwest section of the station, around where the clinic was situated. Slumping against the wall to take a break, she waited for the sitrep call from the others. As far as she knew, everyone got through and no alarms were sounded. No reason to expect foul play yet, right?

She didn't have to wait long. Soon Vellios' flanging voice was in her earpiece.

"T here. I'm at the next terminal, comms are clear. Standing by for phase 2."

Dex, Cafe

For as little time it took to set up her makeshift terminal in the maintenance house, it took more time to dismantle it then return everything back to how it was before the turian spy had begun her tampering. Probably a little too clean, she took a step back considering. It took a few minutes but she returned with a cloth cleaning the wall of access points, her handiwork going to earn them good points on their next inspection. Satisfied, she disappeared as quiet as a ghost through a hatch leading into the service tunnels. Missing the next round of workers returning.

The tunnels were a little cramped for Tanya, they were brutal on the tall turian. She managed with minor cursing finding the closest exit to sneak out of. Below some shadowy grates outside the cafe Dex peered up, listening. Eclipse boots walked across the grate, one salarian complaining about the fuss over one drell. The other, a turian pointing out the paycheck waiting for them when they caught him. When they turned a corner, mechanical talons slipped through the grates lifting them up with a grunt of effort. Dex lifted herself out of the tunnel, replacing the grate. She stood up to her full height to stretch, she tapped into the cafe’s grainy security cameras noting she was a little late to the meet up. Vellios managed a wink up at the cameras. Over the comms she heard Tanya checking in, Iosif and Serena. Drono and Vellios began the meeting while Tonka, Firuzeh and Khosin settled in themselves.

She kept to the safety of being out of eyesight, “Sorry I’m a little late. Had to pack in my handiwork.” Her voice broke in over the comms. “Recapping, Serena and Tanya have made some decent strides with fucking up the mechs. Everyone got in undetected, no suspicion has been raised save for…” She checked her notes on each crewmember then cackled at Drono’s entrance. She spelled it out, “88-IG-ORD66-SW? Glad the opportunity with the legalise didn’t go to waste, Balto.”

“That was the easy part. Now, we need to draw Eclipse away from the doctor’s office. Firu and Tonka smuggled in our weapons. We can do a trade off of weapons in quiet spots on the station close to our setup points. Sniper nests can be scouted. Tanya is in the tunnels waiting for escort.” Dex rhymed off what they had needed to cover. “Haze you got anything for us? You’ve had a good look at those maps, where should we set up.”

Firuzeh, Cafe

"Ah, but not as lovely as you, my gallant friend. Apologies but, which side was the scarred one, again?" Firuzeh playfully teased, sipping silently from a sweet, non alcoholic cocktail of fruits and a fizzy drink - it was surprisingly good, despite the cheesy name the drink had been given. "Everything in safe and sound!" She declared - albeit quietly, so that merely Vellios and other crewmates within her immediate vicinity could hear. Even so, she took no risks, refusing to speak of the smuggled weapons directly. "All the parts and components are finally in - and security didn't even bother shaking me down over having my uniform folded the wrong way for company policy or something!" She crowed, cramming as much innocent relief into her words as she could without her acting being obvious. "So how's our friend? Still feeling sick? Guards were still grumpy so I've not been in the loop for the stomach flu he picked up in Omega." She raised an eyebrow, looking around. "Everyone else seems to be doing fine, though."

Seated near the back of the café, with a piping hot mug of dextro-levo coffee, was Hazan. Way ahead of everyone else, he had kept an eye on the doors as the rest of the team had filtered in. The masquerade was easy enough to maintain; a mug of coffee and his datapad were enough to make him look like a casual tourist reading the news in his little booth. As the last of the crew trickled in, took their seats and got a drink, Hazan turned off his music and switched over to their private comms channel while pulling up the route map he'd drawn earlier onto his pad. With a few taps on the pad, he sent copies of the map to the omnitools of his teammates and synced them to his pad while waiting for everyone else to check in. Drono chimed in with the all important mission question.

“Alright. Now comes the tricky part. Getting me in and out without me dying. Ideas?”

"I'm glad you asked, Balto. Fellas, if you'd pay attention to your omnitools, I've just sent you a map of the station grounds where we're going to be operating."

He used a talon to circle the bar that they were in, a light blue circle appearing on the map synced to everyone's devices.

"This is where we are now. Crummy little bar out in the middle of nowhere."

He then circled the little box that indicated the clinic.

"And this is the clinic. Looks simple? Not really. Let me explain."

A talon drew a rather straightforward line that connected the diner with the clinic. The line itself had a few turns here and there, but it was the most direct route that he could plan with all the prep work he'd done. Bar cutting through service areas and avoiding patrols, it was fast and efficient. If a little dangerous.

"Our route is going to be on a direct course for the clinic, as planned. However, there are hazards I've identified along the way that might hinder our journey."

Hazan drew two red squares and two red circles on a section of corridor that made a slow left turn.

"A pair of guards with two LOKI mechs patrol along this section of the route. Coincidentally, it just so happens to be near a particularly expensive reconstructive surgery clinic. Related? Possibly, I'd imagine that Eclipse like to protect the businesses that pay them."

He then changed his colour to a bright yellow and made small rectangles in several corners and hallways along the route, followed by yellow cones that overlapped onto the drawn path.

"Cameras are stationed at these points all along the route, coverage as follows. All these hallways don't make for good concealment, so we're going to have to use the crowds to get by."

Another two red circles, a red square and a yellow rectangle were drawn onto the path a distance further.

"Another two guards and a mech are stationed here. Security checkpoint leading to some sort of service area. Camera here too."

Lastly he drew two more yellow rectangles that overlooked a small plaza area of sorts that held their destination plus a few extra shops and businesses.

"The clinic itself is rather loosely guarded. No patrols pass by, and only two cameras cover it from differing angles. The clincher is how we're going to get our sick Drell past the rest of security. And I've got a good idea how."

He panned the map back to the diner, zoomed in and marked each of their omnitool signatures with a dark blue square, save for Drono who he marked as a bright blue diamond.

"What we're gonna do is what we in the private security business call a staggered escort. Basically our VIP, that's you Balto, is going to be in the center of our escort column. From there, four of us are going to form a very loose square around him. Three of us will form an extremely loose wedge in the rear of the column, with one guy the furthest back we can muster without it looking suspicious. That guy's gonna be the rear scout. The remaining two of us will be out front, one just ahead of the square, and the other furthest out. That's the front scout, and that's my role in this. Now, the trick here is keeping suspicion away from us as a whole. If we do it by the book, 'hella suspicious' is an understatement. What I propose is that we maintain a modicum of our disguises as we head towards the clinic. Keep the formation as loose as possible, blend together with the crowd. Make sure we're spread apart enough not to arouse suspicion. Keep it relaxed but focused."

To illustrate his point, on the map he arranged the blue shapes into a rather messy looking formation; Drono's diamond in the center of four squares that were arrayed rather clumsily around him, followed by an equally clumsy wedge of squares behind him and two more ahead of him.

Hazan coughed softly and took a sip of his coffee.

"Now I suggest that we leave the diner one by one or in your small groups. As Dex can attest to, all of us standing and leaving at once is going to turn heads. Make sure you're all good and ready before we leave, alright? For those of you that asked for your stuff to be brought in, don't worry. Dex and I have planned three dead drop sites nearby with our gear. They're on your maps as the little green triangles. I've also marked each dead drop with whoever's kit is there. Collect them discreetly, then head out. Once we confirm that everyone's left the diner, we can start the mission clock and go all in."

Satisfied with the briefing he'd given, he smirked a little and sat back in his chair. Of course, he'd already retrieved his piece. The dead drop with his name on it held his Predator, which was currently stuffed into the back of his pants. His private security training had come with several perks, one of which was a concealed carry holster designed to fit into the back belt loops of civilian pants. His pistol was comfortably stowed there, no bumps or lumps to betray its position. The only remnant of his former life he was willing to keep.

Hazan took another sip of his coffee and folded his arms.

"Any questions?"

It was something resembling a plan, at least. Hazan, of all people, seemed to have put a lot of thought for getting Drono into the clinic. Tanya listened through her omnitool, slouched against a wall of the metal service tunnel, staring absentmindedly at a strip of blue LED lights that provided the bulk of the illumination as she listened to the turian lay out his case, bit by bit. It was a good foundation, but some of it didn’t quite sit right.

”If I may,” Tanya interjected, turning her eyes from the lights to the map that Hazan had sent. ”I think we’ve been getting really lucky so far as to not prod the wasp nest with fucking with Eclipse’s tech and getting through customs. If we keep pressing our luck, someone’s going to get tipped off. We need to find a way to do this without mucking with the cameras too much; new disguises, maybe?”

Sitting at a table alone with his back to the group, Tonka sipped at literal soup bowl of coffee. The krogan’s wideset eyes surveyed the patrons around him, trying to ascertain if they were being monitored. ”If a bunch of us are all heading the same way in a short period of time, it wouldn’t even take an unpaid intern to start putting together that maybe, just maybe, those people who get through customs around the same time that suddenly started moving to the same location within a short time period from the same cafe might have something to do with one another. We have an actual doctor; why not get her some nurse scrubs and a wheelchair for Drono and have her go in with me? If others keep a lookout at different parts of the station along the way, as well as monitoring the terminals, we can get Drono in without fanfare. If Yestin starts to get wise, it would do us good to start causing trouble all over rather than all head to the same easily assaulted clinic.”

”I’m probably best keeping where I’m at down here like a little rat. Unless they lock me out, I can at least slow them down or misdirect the Eclipse mercs. I’d like to get into Eclipse’s networks, but that’s a double edged sword and an intrusion is almost certainly going to be noticed immediately.” Tanya paused. ”I mean, Eclipse is basically what happens if a high school AV club is filled with sociopaths and people with extremely flexible ethics. What I mean is they’re a bunch of extremely dangerous nerds who we can’t take lightly.”

Serena scowled as she heard Vellios flirting with Firu, instantly disliking it, before confusion washed over her. Why the hell do I care? It's not like I should be interested in her. Vellios can flirt with whoever he damn well pleases. Despite that flawless logic, she remained irritated, scowling at her omni-tool and muttering. "Damn Eclipse." It was a fairly poor attempt at hiding that she was irritated at anything other than the fire walls of Eclipse, but it was the best she had. She continued quietly hacking the LOKI's as the rest of their crew, that could, filled into the shop and took their various places. She waited for someone more qualified to answer Drono's question (after all, she was just the tech person who was supposed to provide fire support when things are at their worst), typing away.

One eyebrow raised as Hazan began to outline his plan. By the end of it both eyebrows were raised. She was staring at the map and markings on it, concerned. The plan was a good one, if they were a security firm with no bigger problems than 'get the target to the site as inconspicuously as possible'. They weren't. That many of us moving in any form of organization in the same direction is going to turn some heads. Especially with Tonka. Not to mention, I'm not particularly good at keeping a game face. Fortunately, Tanya and Tonka spoke up with her concerns before she had too. She added her two cents, quietly, as she continued to tap away at her omni-tool.

"I agree with them. As soon as Eclipse notices something wrong they're going to purge their whole system and I'll be able to do absolutely nothing to stop them. The only reason I've gotten as far as I have is because I'm scurrying like a roach in the shadows, hoping they don't shine a light at me. If we put Balto in a mask and some suitably covering quarantine clothing, slap some doctor clothing on our resident medic, have her act harried and in a hurry, and have Tonka with her and look scary to clear a path, we should be able to get him to the clinic quickly." She sucked in her top lip as she cracked into another LOKI cluster.

"Two stay close enough to fast response if things go to hell and they need help fighting their way out, but the rest either spread out to cause trouble at areas Eclipse deems more important, if necessary, while the three of us in the systems, stay doing what we're doing to make trouble with their fancy electronics if we need to."

After the unpleasant experience of going through Lafayette station’s checkpoint, Khosin couldn’t help but sigh at the next part of their little plan. “Of all places to set the meeting point why did it have to be a pillars-damned cafe.” He thought inwardly, shaking his head in exasperation, as he made his way towards the cafe. He was already drawing more attention that he liked and, as such, he wasn’t looking forward to entering the cafe and drawing even more attention “You’d think I am a varren that learned to walk the way people look at me.” The batarian muttered to himself quietly as he continued walking at a brisk pace towards the meeting point.

It didn’t took long for Khosin to find the Doctor’s Orders, the pub’s sign easily distinguishing it from the other shops. Pushing the door open, he quickly made a beeline where the group had already settled in inside the cafe “Sorry for the delay, had a small problem getting into the station proper.” He said as he took a seat close to Tonka and settled in alongside the rest of the crew. When Hazan began speaking, Khosin looked down at his omnitool as the Turian had instructed; he stared at the holographic map as it lit up with every new piece of information that Hazan relayed to him and the rest of the team, his four eyes easily following the the spots on the map that were highlighted in sync with the information that was being shared with them.

Khosin listened as Hazan began to outline the plan with which they’d get Drono into the clinic, nodding slightly to himself once Haze was done speaking. He was surprised when he heard both Tanya and Tonka started voicing their concerns regarding the plan that Haze had outlined, to Khosin the plan outlined by Haze had seemed sound and relatively risk-free but Tonka and Tanya had made rather good points as well in regards to the risks that accompanied such a plan, their point only gaining more validation when Serena agreed with the points raised by Tanya and Tonka. He stayed for a few more moments as he listened to Serena’s idea, placing his hands on the table and standing up once she was done speaking “Well, it’s been lovely catching up with you guys but I need to get going.” He said “Came here to get a check-up since my biotic amp’s been acting weird lately, and if I stay chatting any longer chances are there’ll be no one left to see if the damn thing is breaking up or not.” The Batarian said as he started moving towards the exit of the cafe “I’ll tell you guys how things went out a bit later, wish me luck.” Khosin said lastly, finally reaching the door that led out into the streets. It didn’t took him long to find the clinic but it was a bit of a challenged to enter into it than he had anticipated, but perhaps that was on account of his race more than anything else.

Once he was inside, he took a sit in one of the sparse seats that were distributed in the reception area. “Made it inside clinic, took a few minutes to get past the guards at the entrance. There’s not much security inside the building proper, apart from quite a few cameras inside the reception which might complicate things. This is all I’ve managed to see without raising suspicions, Khosin out.” The batarian wrote in his omnitool, sending the message to the rest of the Jury Riggers through the secure channel that Dex had set for the team. Closing his omnitool and settling comfortably, or as much as he could, in the seat he had grabbed, Khosin discreetly kept an eye inside the reception area as he waited for the rest of the group to arrive, his four eyes looking for any sign of trouble.